Wesley's Doomsday Review

I was going through our new release Fed-ex box at Movie Gallery earlier this week when I discovered British horror director Neil Marshall's new film Doomsday sitting in it. I remember being slightly intrigued about seeing Doomsday when it originally came out mostly due to the fact that Marshall directed it and I loved his last effort, The Descent. However, the previews for the film looked pretty silly and the reviews weren't much better. Because of this, I decided to not see the film.

However, since I get free rentals, I decided to give the movie a shot. I wish I hadn't.

Doomsday is pretty much a waste of time. I can't believe how bored, uninterested, and unengaged I was during my viewing of this film. There were a few times where I actually felt like getting up and just turning it off but, for some reason, I didn't do that (I've never not finished a movie, no matter how bad or boring it was). Much like my viewing of The Ruins, I felt as if I had gained absolutely nothing by watching this movie by the time it had ended (though I feel like I gained a lot more watching The Ruins after seeing this movie). I just don't know how Marshall could go from directing such a claustrophobic, intelligent, character-driven, and scary film like The Descent to directing such an awkward, uninspired, cult-film-wannabe like Doomsday.

I think that was my biggest problem with the movie: it just wanted to be a cult film so bad. What's even worse is it can't decide what kind of cult film it wants to be. It essentially just rips off a bunch cult films in its identity crisis: The Road Warrior (with it's ending), Escape From New York (with it's quarantine and erection of a large wall around a city), and even Dawn of the Dead (with the spreading of a deadly, zombie-like virus). The film goes in all these directions and does so awkwardly. If this wasn't enough, it even takes a strange breather and turns into a medieval castle-and-knights film at one point. Yeah, I wasn't expecting that at all. Surprisingly, this section of the film isn't too bad (mostly due to the presence of the always awesome Malcolm MacDowell) but, compared to the rest of the film, it feels awkward and out of place. Like I said, the movie is just trying too hard to be gritty, cool, and original. It wants to have a cult-like following like the aforementioned films that it rips off and, because of that, it fails at achieving a purpose. 

Unlike The Descent, Marshall has no handle on his action, story, or character via his direction. The action sequences are shaky and bland. They are about as typical as an action sequence out of any random Hollywood film and are even more as unengaging. As stated in the previous paragraph, the story line is all over the place and never really settles down. I could never really get into any of the directions that the film was taking because it never really spent enough time developing them. As for the characters, this was probably the biggest slap in the face. The Descent had some of the best character development that I've seen in a recent horror film. Each of the women portrayed seemed and felt very real and like very flawed human beings. Marshall throws all that kind of character development out the window in Doomsday. This movie had the character development equivalent of a Paul W. S. Anderson film. Yeah, it was that bad. I honestly couldn't describe any of the characters that were apart of the team to find the cure to the virus. Not one (other than Eden, the main girl, of course). Talk about sloppy and nonexistent character development. 

Did I mention that the movie turns into a blatant car advertisement towards the end? Well, it does. It's just embarrassing to witness it happen. Really, really embarrassing. And while we're on the ending of the film, what was up with that? No, I'm not talking about the blatant car commercial part, I'm talking about the final image. It just doesn't make any sense. Never would that character do that or join up with the cause that they did. It was just try to be a shocking surprise ending and it just had me shaking my head. I didn't buy it. 

Was there anything that I liked about the movie? There was one scene with the crazy immune freaks or whatever they were that was pretty effective. It was when they have Eden imprisoned and they throw a crazy rally of sorts. The stuff that they do during this rally was pretty crazy. Marshall's direction during this scene was particularly stylish and effective (especially with "Spellbound" by Siouxsie and the Banshees playing in the background). I also enjoyed Rhona Mitra as Eden for the most part. She was definitely very attractive (something Marshall milked every chance that he could- he even put that infamous butt close-up in the trailer) and that didn't hurt things. Still, I could help but think at times that she was basically like the poor woman's Kate Beckinsale at times. Well, to my surprise, I looked her up on IMDB a few minutes ago and she's actually going to be taking over Kate's role in what's sure to a straight-to-DVD Underworld 3. So I guess that just confirms what I was thinking as the movie played before me. Also, like I said before, it was nice to see Malcolm MacDowell in the movie but they definitely didn't do much with him and it felt like he was wasted for the most part. I also did have a little respect for Marshall's anti-Hollywood approach to violence- the guy just goes for it and, because of this, the movie is much grittier than most movies of this type that are coming out. Still, that couldn't save this movie from being anything other than a boring, rip off of other cult films.

As you can see, I didn't really care for Doomsday all too much. It tries too hard to be this outrageous cult phenomena and it fails pretty miserably in the process. The story and characterization is pretty much nonexistent. Because of this, the film is mostly a bore that feels like a chore to get through. When I rented the film, I wasn't hoping for a masterpiece but I was at least hoping to be entertained for two hours. That was not the case. I don't know Neil Marshall was thinking with this one. Here's hoping that his next effort is more in the vein of The Descent. 

Feel free to pass this one by when you see it on the shelves come next week. You're not going to miss anything.

3/10